We already have glimpsed what computation can do for the traditional sciences when used as a tool in support of conventional experiments. The tools that have been built, or soon will be built, allow experiments at a scale and intensity that were difficult to imagine even a few years ago.

Science is witnessing a data revolution. Data are now created by faster and cheaper physical technologies, software tools and digital collaborations. Examples of these include satellite networks, simulation models and social network data. To transform these data successfully into information then into knowledge and finally into wisdom, we need new forms of computational thinking. These may be enabled by building "instruments" that make data comprehensible for the "naked mind" in a similar fashion to the way in which telescopes reveal the universe to the naked eye.

Presenting the research of the Data-Intensive Research Group as part of a visit of Professor Robin Stanton (Pro Vice-Chancellor) and Professor Lindsay Botten (Director, National Computational Infrastructure), Australian National University, to the UK National e-Science Centre.

Quality Assurance (QA) is used to monitor the performance of MRI scanners and this is particularly important in multicentre imaging studies. In SINAPSE (Scottish Imaging Network a Platform for Scientific Excellence) a common QA protocol was agreed after studying the different QA protocols being used in the seven participant MR scanners in four centres and analysing the needs of multicentre studies. This common protocol provides a framework for monitoring the quality of the data obtained in the different centres to help facilitate the combination of data between centres.

Morphological and functional knowledge of the neurons of the Drosophila melanogaster brain has been accumulated drastically, thanks to the recent improvements in visualization techniques. Identified neurons, however, have been reported in diverse publications with inconsistent formats, making it very difficult to acquire comprehensive overview about what is known and what remains uninvestigated. To address this problem, we developed an online database, called Flybrain Neuron Database, which aims to collect information about all the Drosophila brain neurons reported so far.

This presentation's focus is on the computer science research performed at the National e-Science Centre as part of the University of Edinburg and the University of Glasgow. Another submission reports on the community support offered by the National e-Science Centre.

OGSA-DAI provides an extensible framework that allows data resources to be incorporated into distributed systems. The WS-DAI (Web Service Data Access and Integration) family of specifications defines web service interfaces to data resources, such as relational or XML databases. Providing reference implementations for such specifications is important for the improvement of the specifications and the satisfaction of the interoperability goal.